


Half Moon

by mage_cat



Series: Mending Bridges [7]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra (She-Ra) Redemption, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mage_cat/pseuds/mage_cat
Summary: It's time to see where Catra's mended bridges lead.
Series: Mending Bridges [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683547
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	Half Moon

Catra, Adora, Glimmer, and Bow hurried down a tunnel that had started under Bright Moon. They doubted that the terrain above them was still anywhere near the castle though. Shadow Weaver had escaped--long story--and had done what she always did. She went to the most powerful force that had not actively spurned her recently and offered her services. Where Glimmer and Catra had spent their time with Horde Prime bluffing and giving as little away as they could, Shadow Weaver had clearly told him everything, and that had emboldened him to increase the aggressiveness of his assaults.

Etheria’s best hope laid with them rendering the Heart of Etheria useless as a weapon. Entrapta and Hordak had figured out how doing so should be possible. The Sword of Protection had been reforged and was now back on Adora’s arm as a bracelet, the stone projecting a path for the four to follow. The rest of the Rebellion had stayed on the surface to try and protect what they could.

It was hard not to run--everything felt urgent--but they did not know just how far they would have to go. They couldn’t tire themselves out too quickly. As they traveled, pure glowing crystal had given way more and more to rough stone, the light turning from day-bright to something much dimmer.

A shadow broke away from part of the tunnel wall ahead of them and stood in their path, squinting at them with slit-pupiled eyes that reflected green.

“State your business,” said the shadow in a voice that sounded male.

Catra found herself focusing on his ears. There were several feline species on Etheria. The ears were the quickest way to tell most of them apart. Lion and tiger people had rounded ears. Lynx people had ears tipped with tufts of fur. The one time Catra had spotted ears as pointed as her own in a crowd, they had turned out to belong to a fox woman. The shadow had ears the same shape as Catra’s.

It was Glimmer who answered first. “Just passing through.”

The shadow stepped forward, the darkness resolving into brown fur and deeper brown hair cut to chin length. From his belt hung a coiled whip on one side and the hilt of a light sword on the other. “No one just ‘passes through’ Half Moon.”

His gaze lingered on Catra as she fingered the whip at her own hip, and she tried to see herself through his eyes. She had mostly stopped wearing black. More red suited her better. She had cut her hair so that it was scarcely longer than her fur now. It seemed silly to say that, with the weight of all she had done, it had felt good to remove the weight of all that hair, but it was true. More than one person had said that the change called attention to the delicate features of her face. Given that the man seemed to have been literally living under a rock, there were good odds that when he looked at her he didn’t see the person who had conquered a sizable chunk of Etheria. That was a relief.

Adora broke Catra’s line of thought. “Any way we could arrange passing through? We really are headed elsewhere.”

“You will have to meet with Queen C’yra. She will decide what to do with you. I am Captain Percival of the Half Moon guard. Your introductions can wait for the queen.”

* * *

They had been following Percival for less than a minute when the tunnel curved and opened up to an immense cavern. Orange stone walls had been carved into buildings stacked on top of each other rising about ten stories above where they had entered and descending perhaps twenty stories down to the shores of semi-circular lake that reflected the warm light of the crystals that illuminated the underground city. The lake really did look like a half moon.

“Felix!” Percival called out, grabbing the attention of a young cat man whose black fur and hair were interrupted by white markings on his face, neck, and hands. “I have a message for you to carry.”

The rest of the conversation was too low for Catra to hear until she could make out Felix’s concluding “Yes, sir.” He took a long look at the visitors before beginning to climb a nearby building.

Percival returned to them. “We have to go up two levels. I’ll be taking you the long way. Magicats are skilled climbers, but we do remember that not every species is.”

The long way was a spiral along what could be thought of as the roofs of the buildings below or simply the wide path in front of the buildings they passed. Climbing did seem to be a much more common means of passing between levels than the route they were taking.

They ascended the first level mostly in silence, now and then nudging each other to point something out.

“This place is beautiful,” said Catra.

Percival smiled at her. “It does my old heart good to hear that you say that about our home.”

Once they were two levels up from were they started, Percival said, “I hope you all will forgive the staring.” Catra had, in fact, lost count of the cat people--Magicats--who had stopped what they had been doing upon catching sight of them. “We have kept to ourselves for a very long time, and we cut off what little contact we kept with the surface years ago.” He lead them into a building, passing from an antechamber to what was clearly a throne room. “The last time anyone from Half Moon had any significant interaction above ground, it ended with us loosing our most prized artifact and, more importantly, one of our children.”

A female voice came from the head of the room. “The artifact was known as the Mask of the Magicat Queen, and the child was my daughter.” The Magicat woman had charcoal gray fur and salt-and-pepper hair fell in a wild mane halfway down her back. Everything else about her was intimately familiar, right down to the brilliantly blue right eye and equally bright yellow left.

She continued to speak as she walked towards them. “I had brought her along on a diplomatic mission to discuss Half Moon adding its forces to the Rebellion against the Horde--I knew several members of the Alliance had children roughly her age--but our party was attacked before ever reaching Bright Moon, and we were overwhelmed. The sorceress who led the attack gave me two choices, I could surrender my people and our knowledge to Horde control, or I could give up my daughter to her care to buy Half Moon’s continued secrecy and freedom. The Horde would never attack Half Moon while Shadow Weaver coordinated its forces. I weighed one life against all of Half Moon and have prayed everyday since that my daughter might live long enough to forgive me. I gave her the Mask in the thin hope that its enchantments might aid her.” She came to a stop in front of Catra. “Today, I know my daughter lives, but my entirely unearned forgiveness is still very much in question.”

There was no question who her daughter was, not when looking at those matching mismatched eyes.

The air vibrated between them--literally--as they purred. Not every purr meant pleasure. Catra saw the queen’s wide eyes and tight face, feeling the same expression on her own, and knew that it was an attempt to self-soothe and get a grip on this situation. Forgiveness was so often hard to ask for. Catra knew that painful reality so many times over.

Queen C’yra raised her hand a fraction, clearly fighting the urge to reach out and touch her. “Catra,” she said in a tone she must have also used for all those years of prayers. “To say I’m sorry does not begin to be enough. I--”

She was cut off by Catra throwing herself forward to wrap her arms tightly around her. The tenor of the vibration that filled the air changed as the two purrs shifted tone and harmonized. The queen returned her daughter’s embrace, and they each felt their shoulder grow damp with the other’s tears.

They stayed like that for an eternity that could never be long enough before C’yra stepped back. She ran a thumb over the edge of Catra’s mask. “You do wear the Queen’s Mask well. But you didn’t come here for this, or you would have said as much to Percival. What could possibly bring you all the way down here?”

“Have you ever heard of the Heart of Etheria?”

C’yra blinked. “We guard it. It’s a history that would take too long to tell standing here. Our knowledge of it was part of what I was determined to keep away from the Horde. If you are here to activate it...” It would clearly give this reunion a turn she didn’t want.

“We’re here to disarm it. Dissipate the energy back to the planet and its people before the Heart can be used as a weapon.”

“You would need a She-Ra for that.”

“We have one.” Catra turned to Adora, who in turn waved somewhat awkwardly. Behind her, Bow and Glimmer were clearly fighting back their own misty-eyed reactions to the reunion they had just witnessed. “Adora and I grew up in the Cadet Corps together. She joined the Rebellion when she found the Sword of Protection. I... was stubborn and stayed longer. I made it all the way to second-in-command before I left.” She couldn’t resist a little boasting. It wasn’t like it had been easy.

For the moment, C’yra’s attention was on Adora. “I want to see.”

“Of course, your Majesty.” At a touch, the bracelet transformed back into a sword, which Adora held up. “For the Honor of Grayskull!”

There was a time when Catra could easily think of Adora and She-Ra as two different people. That had been made easier by the fact that, aside from having the same face, She-Ra had never looked like Adora to her. That time has passed.

The person who stood before them was obviously She-Ra, all in white and gold with touches of red, larger than most humans, and radiating power. The differences were in a dozen tiny details, the way the spun-gold hair now stayed pulled back, the loss of the cape, its color transferred to the lining of the coattails, the tiara that now looked to be one solid piece rather than disjointed elements that happened to be near each other. The tiara, in fact, now had a shape that echoed Catra’s mask. Everything was subtly more solid, more practical. This wasn’t the She-Ra the First Ones sought to use as a tool. This was Adora at the height of her power.

C’yra had no way to know about the changes, but she clearly knew a She-Ra when she saw one. “The power of the Heart flared several months ago.”

“I stopped it.” Adora powered down. “Now we’re going to stop it for good.”

Bow spoke, “Catra was actually the one who figured out that the Heart had been collecting power from people as well the planet.”

“People on the surface anyway,” C’yra said. “One of the reasons the Magicats went underground was because it turned out the there was such a thing as being too close to the Heart to be affected by the collection field.”

Catra conjured a globe of amber light. “I had to be off-planet for a few days. Hordak’s big brother has come conquering, and he brought spaceships.”

“How did he get spaceships into Despondos?”

“When the Heart’s power flared?” said Glimmer. “That was part of Etheria being pulled back into normal space. Everything else is kind of terrible, but the stars are beautiful.”

“I’ve taken you to see the Heart before, Catra. I don’t expect you remember the way.”

Catra shook her head. “I don’t know the way, but the Sword does.”

“At least let me take you to the mouth of the tunnel. It’s down by the lake shore.”

* * *

As they followed Queen C’yra, Catra’s mother, down the winding path to the bottom of Half Moon, they hung back. Glimmer had needed space after reuniting with her father. It was only right that Catra would need the same.

“Told you that mask looked like a tiara,” Glimmer joked.

“Yeah,” Catra smiled. “You did.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” said Adora.

Catra looked out over the city where she had been born. “It would be good to have a home base where I don’t feel like I’m living off some princess’s--some other princess’s--good graces. If it turns out I disappoint them here, I guess I could always go back to the Crimson Waste and take over another bandit gang. Actually, technically, I think I can still claim to have one answering to me, even if it’s only two other people right now.”

Bow put a hand on her shoulder. “You aren’t going to disappoint them.”

Glimmer said, “Their lost princess has just returned carrying with her friendly diplomatic relations with a half-dozen realms and a military record that would make any enemy of Half Moon think twice before attacking.”

“Any enemy aside from Horde Prime and Shadow Weaver,” said Catra.

Adora wrapped an arm around Catra’s waist. “Good thing we were already planing on stopping them. Together.”

The four friends exchanged glances, and Catra said, “Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> And that's the end of Mending Bridges. Now to wait and see what canon has in store.


End file.
